The Startup CPG Podcast

Greg Cahn
I think for us right now, trying to be really thoughtful and really surgical about our growth. Really strategic, you know, the focus right now on the retail side is independent natural grocery, California Focus, where we can really demo, really be there on site. You know that's what's so good about the farmers market is I get to really educate because we're first to market here. If you Google date coffee, we'll be on page one. We're on page one there. But it's not a big search volume, right. Because it's a totally new category. What will populate is date seed coffee.

00:41
Caitlin Bricker
Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Brooker, editor at Startup cpg. We are back with another founder feature. How's everyone feeling about coffee? Are you a coffee freak or looking to lessen your caffeine intake? What about dates? Because I'm a self proclaimed date freak. Today we're talking with Greg Kahn, co founder of Tamar Date Coffee. Greg's turned his personal coffee struggles into a game changing product that's part coffee, part dates, including the upcycled date seeds that would otherwise be waste. From his background in the music industry to becoming first to market in the date coffee category, Greg's proving that sometimes the best innovations come from solving your own problems. We'll dive into how he's building a brand with just two ingredients or why the branding caught my eye and what it's like to educate consumers on a completely new category.

01:29
Caitlin Bricker
This conversation might change how you think about your next morning cup. Enjoy. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Kaitlyn and today I'm here with Greg Kahn, co founder of Tamar Date Coffee. Greg, welcome to the show.

01:49
Greg Cahn
Thank you for having me, Caitlin. Really excited about this.

01:51
Caitlin Bricker
It's been a long time coming. Thank you so much for being so flexible and understanding toddler life. We are very happy to finally have you here.

01:59
Greg Cahn
I know that life very well. It's easy. And again just we're really grateful for startup cpg, so respected in the industry and so to be here talking about tomorrow today is just a big thrill. And so yeah, and I'm easy. I'm very easy.

02:16
Caitlin Bricker
Great. Well let's dive into it. For anybody who's listening that doesn't know who Tamar is, can you just give little brief description of what Tamar is?

02:27
Greg Cahn
Sure. So Tamar. So our brand name is Tamar Date Coffee. We do a very non sophisticated blend of coffee which is, we have our first cue which is what we call our original blend which is, we call it balance. It's 50% coffee and it's 50% dates. Of that 50% of the dates, 35% is date seeds. 15% is the date fruit dried and ground into what we call date sugar or date powder. Some people, the industry doesn't like the word sugar, but it is date sugar. The healthiest sweetener, the healthiest sugar. But so we serve date coffee and the biggest question that people always ask me is, does it taste like coffee? It does because it is coffee. It's just blended with dates.

03:14
Caitlin Bricker
That's a great question. I'm sure many people are probably like, is it actually coffee or is it dates? But it's a blend of both.

03:21
Greg Cahn
So one of both.

03:22
Caitlin Bricker
Great to know.

03:23
Greg Cahn
Yeah, it's not a, it's not infused, it's not extracted. It's just, it's two amazing ingredients blended together.

03:30
Caitlin Bricker
I love that. Did you love coffee first or did you love dates first?

03:36
Greg Cahn
I loved coffee first and then I fell in love with dates. But I had a big problem with coffee which for me, my big pain point was coffee has been too acidic for me. I struggle with acid reflux forever and eventually it's. It got to a place where I just, I needed to make a change because it was just not the experience of drinking coffee was not enjoyable. My esophagus would burn and just. It really messed with my stomach and messed with my whole kind of this whole area. So when my brother in law, who's the maker, he was tinkering with a few things, dates and coffee, and brought me the idea, the very early iteration of the product and reached out and said, you know, you really need to, I need you to come up to the Bay.

04:22
Greg Cahn
I live in Los Angeles, he's up in the Bay and he said, I really need you to come up to the Bay and try something. I have something really interesting that I think you're going to like. The backstory of that is I've always been kind of a soundboard to him and his creations. We're both entrepreneurs at heart and. But I wasn't in food and Bev at the time. I've been in music for most of my working life. But I was looking for something. I was looking for a business to start specifically in E Com. I'm a religious how I built this fanatic and over the years I just, I got to a place where I really want to start something. And as the universe works, sometimes things are just brought to you and it just is the right moment.

05:01
Greg Cahn
And so he had me really intrigued. I drove up to the bay and we sat down and had our first, my first cup of date coffee. And at that point it was like this immediate light bulb of wow, this is coffee I can enjoy. Like I, it was the most smooth balanced coffee that was going down my esophagus. That was just so for me, not even on a founder entrepreneur perspective, but more of like a use case as a user. It was immediate and I said I need more of this. This is what I need. So, so that was like the beginning, the origin of saying I'm in. You have me at dates now.

05:41
Caitlin Bricker
Did Eyal know about your experience with acid reflux prior to kind of saying hey, let's try this coffee together.

05:50
Greg Cahn
He didn't know like the full scope of what I was, how effective my life has been. You know, we enjoyed coffee with him for a long time. You know, over family outings, you know, we would find ourselves kind of in the corner talking about music and having a cup of coffee. And he knew that I, I would put honey and cinnamon in my coffee. One to sweeten the coffee cause I don't like bitter coffee and two to cut the acidity with the cinnamon. So he always knew that. Cuz every time I'd come up to the bay and have him pour me a cup of coffee, I'd always ask for honey and cinnamon. And he just thought it was just a thing but it was really cuz my ass reflux and I just don't like, I like to sweeten my coffee so.

06:28
Greg Cahn
But he didn't know the medication that I take. He didn't know all of the things that I kind of deal with on a day to day with acid reflux. So then when we had that cup and what I was telling him that what how I was experiencing this coffee and how it was just, I was so mind blown. That's when he was like, oh, this is interesting. Maybe we have a call out here, maybe we have a low acid coffee here. So it was, you know, over time and now he understands. I mean he knows what medication I'm on. I mean he knows all the things probably more than he ever did about as a reflux.

07:02
Caitlin Bricker
So it was an educational moment for him for sure.

07:05
Greg Cahn
Big time, Big time.

07:07
Caitlin Bricker
So tell me about your background. You mentioned music. What about your background makes this very important in regards to music and coffee.

07:17
Greg Cahn
So since 1516 I've been a singer in bands, an artist, a music entrepreneur and you know, and then from there it kind of, I became A music supervisor for film and TV and ad. So that's what I've been doing and that's what I've known for the last 20 plus years of my professional life. Been on stages, played festivals, did that whole thing and worked on movies and television shows and advertisements and all around music. My love for music and I'm just, I need to do something that I'm passionate about. So that was my driver for being in the music industry all this time.

07:54
Greg Cahn
It's not a very healthy industry but I was again, I'm an entrepreneur at heart and I like to, you know, when I have something to say or push and find an audience, I get very excited about it and I think there's this transcendent connectivity between the thing and the audience, much like being on a stage and connecting with your audience and it kind of being this full community trend, you know, connective thing. So when I was looking for something a little bit outside music and trying to find the product that I really wanted to dive into, when my brother in law Yal showed me the product and how I could kind of help this the first, my instinct was I want to build the brand because that's what I love to do. I love design, I love branding.

08:39
Greg Cahn
So in the creative side, so I, I really took the product, helped him kind of develop it. I was his guinea pig. Tasted, you know, our initial formulation process like I was just drinking cups and cups and really dialing in the ratio. But, but his strength is he's more, he's product and ops, I'm more creative. Sales Biz dev. That's kind of where our skill sets inter, you know, kind of split and intersect. So I dove into the creative, which is the thing I know and started doing the storytelling which is what I love. And what I found was whether it's music or it's food and bev cpg, the parallel is very much the same. It's storytelling, it's finding the right audience, it's connecting to that audience, it's delivering that message over and over till it feels like you don't have to deliver anymore.

09:28
Greg Cahn
You're all in the same room enjoying what we all love to enjoy, whether it's music or a cup of day coffee. But so I really like, I really leaned into the parallel of just storytelling and creative and that's, that's what I know. So there was no kind of like transition process for me. It didn't feel like a transition or from one industry to another. It was very seamless in that sense.

09:53
Caitlin Bricker
That does sound like it would be very seamless and also very energizing. And you've given me a lot of things that I want touch on. One of them is the branding. I. I just have to say I probably should have started out by saying this. I'm a decaf coffee drinker. I can't do caffeine anymore. I did taste tomorrow, obviously, because I love dates and I love the taste of coffee. But what got me, aside from the dates, was the branding. It's just this nice plain package with a bright yellow dot. Tell me what the inspiration was behind that.

10:27
Greg Cahn
I love it. So I. I also brought a hat, which I'll send you.

10:31
Caitlin Bricker
Love that.

10:31
Greg Cahn
And I brought two bags, which I designed, which we designed. And this is our original 50. And this is our newest SKU, the 7030, which is we call Elevate. It's a little bit more caffeine. So not for your speed, but. But we will have something for you very soon. Gonna do a non caf eventually. All dates. But. But back to the yellow dot in the branding. I like circles. I like shapes. But of all the shapes, I love circles. And when I. So when I dove in, the first thing I did was much like going to a record shop when I was little and just going through the aisles and just looking at all the vinyl and all the CDs and all the tapes and just, you know, really gushing over album covers.

11:11
Greg Cahn
I found myself in Erewhon and in Whole Foods and Sprouts and going through the aisles and going and looking at every product, every bag, every package. And during those, like, weeks of just studying. And it was just so ironic that I'm now in a grocery store doing the same thing that I used to do in a record shop. But I said, you know, if we're one day when we're on this shelf, how can we stick out? And if I'm in the produce section and I peek over to another section, say the coffee aisle, how are we going to. How can I find my bag from 30, 50ft away? And then getting deeper into dates and the meaning behind dates, the backstory behind dates is dates are a desert fruit, right? So very drought tolerant. Need sun more than water grow.

12:03
Greg Cahn
So, you know, in my ideation process, I was fixated on this idea of the circle and the yellow circle signifying the desert sun. And I just, you know, kind of played and played. And I like minimalism. I like really simple design. Japanese design, I think, like Matcha. I like Matcha brandings. I love Matcha brands because they're very similar in that sense. They're very clean and, you know, so I wanted that. I wanted something very simple. I wanted. I wanted something that had a little bit deeper meaning, but just wasn't busy and a lot of things were just too busy. Very, very busy. So I landed on the circle, landed on the sun. I landed on the type, which I, you know, again, simple, but it's important and it's intentional. All lowercase. And again, the A of.

12:51
Greg Cahn
Of this type kind of like, is very circular. So I just, you know, you go with your gut. You go with what you like. You know, I didn't. We didn't outsource. We have not outsourced to a creative agency yet. Everything is designed in house. I did all the design and. And I have a great partner who let me kind of steer the creative side, but feel very supported. And we're still in each other's minutiae of, you know, his corner and my corner, but. And we challenge each other, but there's trust there, you know, so when you have a supportive partnership and you can just go with your gut, good things happen.

13:23
Caitlin Bricker
I love everything about the branding. I am also very into simplicity, minimalism, love the sans serif, and I also love the lowercase font, too. I actually wrote a paper when I was in college about how we should be able to use lowercase whenever we want to and choose the fonts that we want to when we're writing papers to express emotion. I'm so sick of Times New Roman. Sorry to whoever invented it, but it's not for me.

13:51
Greg Cahn
It just looks like a legal doc, right? The other thing, to your viewers, too, there was a really transformative Netflix doc that. That really changed me in such a good way. It's called Abstract. Have you. Have you. Have you seen this?

14:02
Caitlin Bricker
I haven't, but I'm going to add it to my list.

14:04
Greg Cahn
It's incredible. And there's two seasons and it's the. They just take similar, like, pioneers of different creative industries, whether it's an architect or it's a, you know, a font maker, or it's a shoemaker like Tinker Hatfield who designed the Air Jordan. All types of creative industries of pioneers. And it's like a our episode. But it is so inspiring for anyone who's in creative branding, entrepreneur. It's. It. It really changed me. And so big recommendation to you and your viewers. Abstract on Netflix. Incredible.

14:40
Caitlin Bricker
All right, taking notes. Abstract on Netflix. Piece of advice to Founders out there. Take a look.

14:46
Greg Cahn
Big time, Big time.

14:48
Caitlin Bricker
And what about the brand name Tamar? What does Tamar mean?

14:51
Greg Cahn
So Tamar is Eyal's mother's name. So my brother in law, the maker's mother's name and a couple things, the backstory on that. So a pretty special name. It is basically the universal name for the date palm. So it's, it means the date palm in Hebrew. Means the date palm basically in Arabic, just a slightly different variation of Tamar. In Armenian, Tamara. Tamara. It all means the date palm, which I loved. And when he told me that and I just said that's like we were messing with all different variations of dates. And, and then also like, for me back to like creative. Like, I think just visually it's just a very stunning looking word. It's short, it's got two A's in it. Like, it's just the M kind of centers it a bit.

15:40
Greg Cahn
So when I saw it and I was writing it down and I was looking at it was really like visually stunning. And so all of those things just made me really set on that name. But the back end of that is it's his mother's name and mother and I just, I love.

15:56
Caitlin Bricker
So it is very balanced when you look at it. It's just very simple, very beautiful. And with the font, it's very elegant looking, but very simple too.

16:06
Greg Cahn
Yeah, I like it.

16:08
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah, that's a cool story. I never, I did not know that about Tamar and dates and Tamara. Now anytime I hear somebody with the name Tamara, that's what I'm going to think is dates.

16:18
Greg Cahn
Yeah, I mean, to not get too religious, but like it's a biblical name meaning the date palm. And the date obviously is a very ancient fruit. So it's just a. In dates. And again, we can. This could be a whole other podcast on dates, but dates are amazing. They're an amazing ancient modern fruit that is in so many ways so important for us, especially now, being that they are a desert fruit with so much nutritional profile that doesn't require a lot of water, that's drought tolerant and super sustainable. So it's like, whoa.

16:51
Caitlin Bricker
I think people often hear about the beneficial properties of the fruit itself, but you're actually using the seed too. So can you tell us what the properties of the seed hold for people who want to drink Tamar?

17:06
Greg Cahn
So the seed, which is not the sweet part, right? The, the pitted date is where the sweetness lies, the pit or the seed which is A wasted product, which was the thing that initially I really loved when he was explaining, you know, what were doing here. And I said, wow, you're so you're taking the pit that is otherwise waste, that people pit a date, throw it in the trash. You're telling me that thing is going back in and we're upcycling that, and I love that. So the pit, the seed, what we're doing is we are roasting it just like a coffee bean and then grinding it down into ground date just like ground coffee. So it behaves very similar to a coffee bean in terms of time and temperature.

17:55
Greg Cahn
So, you know, anywhere from like, let's say a medium roast of a coffee bean is very similar to a medium roast of a date seed. I mean they're pretty, they're really close in temperature and time. So like, you know, 4, 30, 4, 54, 60 degrees, 12 minutes, 13 minutes, 14 minutes, all very similar in that, like that frame. And that is basically it. So then what we're doing is our farm, which is the seed is waste. Or what they do is because there's not much of a market for it, they send it to animal farms for cattle feed just to get something out of that seed. Which is crazy to me because we should be ingesting that seed, we should be consuming that. No disrespect to cows, but you know, they don't fiber.

18:41
Greg Cahn
I mean, so the seeds, the nutritional properties of the seed is high dietary fiber, like loaded with fiber, iron, potassium, like antioxidant polyphenols loaded. Like the nutritional profile of the seed is insane. Like if you were to eat our coffee, you would get. And, and this is not instant, but if you were to eat it, we're get. We have 10 grams of fiber per serving in this thing. Now what we're doing right now with our packaging is not misleading anyone in the sense that this is not instance you have to brew this. So by extraction you're going to extract. You know, we're anywhere between 10 to 20% of those values. But what's so amazing about that is that there's no fiber in coffee. And, and coffee companies don't require a nutritional label. Most coffee bags, you'll never see a nutritional label.

19:30
Greg Cahn
But we're required because we have a fruit blended with coffee. So we have to have nutritional label on our packaging. Right. That's what to me is so earth shattering about this product, is that because of the dates being blended with the coffee, you're getting a Very nutritious, nutrient dense, like very nutrient rich coffee. And so fiber, iron, potassium, things that you would not find in a hundred percent Arabica Robusta coffee, you're finding in the date coffee. So and that's primarily because of that date C, which is a waste product. So we're upcycling that bacon in the market and giving it to humans, not just cows.

20:03
Caitlin Bricker
I love that. I love when brands are finding new ways to take ingredients that would otherwise be waste because there's so much of it, there's ingredients in crisis right now. It's just very refreshing to hear brands who are finding ways to just make the most out of the ingredients that they have.

20:22
Greg Cahn
And it's simple. Like it's, this is not a sophisticated product. I mean there's two, talk about clean label. Like this is two ingredients. It's coffee and dates. And of the dates we're using the whole date. We're using both parts of the date, the seed and the fruit. That's the thing to me also is this is not like this very new agey coffee. That's not really coffee. That's a total coffee substitute. No, this is a coffee alternative, not a coffee substitute. We love coffee. We just wanted less of it. We wanted caffeine, we just wanted to reduce it and we wanted a less acidic coffee. And the dates naturally cut the acidity. And the dates are really easy on the stomach.

20:57
Greg Cahn
So like for people who have stomach issues when they go to the bathroom after a cup of coffee, this coffee like totally neutralizes your stomach. So it, I don't go to the bathroom at all. Like I really don't. Like when I go back to a hundred percent Arabica coffee, that's when I find wow. Like that's where it's like, oh, there's a difference here. Like, so it's those types of like little things where you can load up on the health benefits and the call outs. But it's also the experience of drinking this product. And I think that's the thing that is a little bit invisible until you do it and you experience it and then you know. Cause like some things you just have to experience.

21:33
Greg Cahn
You can't just say oh, I'm going to eat this or drink this because it has all these health benefits and call outs. But then you don't really enjoy it or you don't really experience it. But this, it's a really good experience.

21:43
Caitlin Bricker
Tell me a little bit more about the experience for people who have not tried Tamar yet. What could they expect in comparison to a more mainstream cup of coffee?

21:53
Greg Cahn
So I do the farmer's market on Sundays, which is like the best because you really get real time people, real time data. And so I do the Brentwood Farmers Market here in Los Angeles and I have a lot of fun and I sell a lot of bags to generally mostly people who've never had day coffee in their life. And there was a funny comment this past Sunday of a guy who said, I kind of like when coffee kicks me. I drink a lot of caffeine. I do espresso, like, so I don't know if your half and half is going to do it for me. You should go with our elevates, which is our 70, 30, a little higher caffeine.

22:27
Greg Cahn
More, more like a, you know, 95 milligrams of caffeine compared to a Starbucks 8 ounce, which is a, which is like 145 milligrams but little lesser caffeine, but still up there for you. But what I told him was this coffee's not gonna kick you, it's gonna hug you. And that's the experience is that when you drink this, it really, you don't have the jitters. You really don't, you don't have, you know that term like is tossed around a lot. Oh, no jitters, no crash, no this, no that. I don't really don't have those emotional swings. I feel like it just naturally nicely climbs, you know, to a certain peak level and just stays there. I used to be a caffeine freak. Like I had a caffeine problem that I needed to cut one because caffeine also exacerbates acid reflux.

23:09
Greg Cahn
But I needed to cut my caffeine because I was having like anxiety and the over caffeinated drinks were doing it for me. But like any habit, 21 days, change your habit, you change, get to a new baseline and then that's your new baseline. So anyone is, you know, it's possible for anyone to change their baseline into something better for them. People are so stuck at a certain level baseline. But when I changed it, I felt better. I drink two cups of this every morning out of a French press and I don't need to cut touch coffee for the, you know, past 9, 10 o' clock a.m. and I am productive and I'm not overly anxious and overly jittery and overly stimulated and I sleep great.

23:51
Greg Cahn
And so the, and I just feel, it just feels nice and it's easy on my stomach and it's less acidic and it's naturally sweet. I don't have to add any sort of vanilla creamer honey, which is high sugar content, which I love honey, but again, it's not as healthy of a sweetener as date sugar. Date sugar is of the three healthiest sweeteners, Monk fruit, coconut sugar and date sugar. Those are like the top three that you'll find on Google. And if you read on sweeteners, alternative sweeteners, date sugar is the lowest on the glycemic index. So we will argue, of all the sweeteners, all the sugars out there, honey's good for you. Maple syrup, good for you. You know, there's good sweeteners out there. But date sugar, your body knows what to do with the date sugar. Natural, it's the best.

24:39
Greg Cahn
So back to answering your question. It's the experience that I think is, it really separates us from regular coffee that kicks you in the butt and is not really kind to you. Just gives you that like two hours of rocket fuel. This is like really nice sustained energy.

24:55
Caitlin Bricker
Sustained is a good word for it because it does seem like it would be. You know, we have these unsustainable habits right now of drinking too much caffeine. But it sounds like Tamar is a great sustainable replacement, not only ingredient wise and values wise, but just for your body. If you can drink two cups a day and go on with your day after your morning's over, I think that says a lot.

25:17
Greg Cahn
I mean, I, I'll be honest, like I've lived, you know, I've gotten into some pretty bad habits, especially in the music business. You know, in the entertainment business, you are, especially on the creative side. You feel this need and this urgency to be creative every second. And because you're just that close. From a groundbreaking, life changing creative thing, song, whatever, film, script, whatever. So you're you feel this pressure to take so many different stimulants, overstimulated coffee, Adderall, so many things to try and get to that peak performance of productivity. And it's such a trick, it's such a trap. And when you're grounded and you feel really good and you find that one thing that, you know, just makes you just on a little bit more. But, but not all the way on.

26:02
Greg Cahn
You know, like you're all on is too, maybe a little too much. Just feeling grounded and feeling right and feeling clear. That's where the magic happens.

26:09
Caitlin Bricker
I totally resonate with that. I find that I am most creative when I don't have anything in my body or anything else controlling my mind. And it's just me.

26:20
Greg Cahn
Totally.

26:21
Caitlin Bricker
So I'm really happy to hear that you're getting good feedback that you can apply at farmer's markets. Tell me about your experience at Expo West.

26:29
Greg Cahn
That was amazing. Certainly something that were driving towards. You know, I had attended it for the last few years through a very good friend of mine who's got an amazing jerky company. I'll just call it out Think Jerky out of Chicago. Incredible. Incredible. And Jeremy, who's part of Think Jerky, who's been a very good friend to me and very generous with his knowledge and openness to pushing me into this space. So I was using their card and. But finally I really.

26:56
Greg Cahn
We were ready to kind of take our first step in and we took a step in at the Fresh Ideas Organic Marketplace which was again, for all, you know, early stage CPG brands, do not overlook the Fresh Ideas Organic Marketplace at Expo west on Tuesday, which is like the pre show to the show because again, when you're a startup and you're cash strapped and you don't have a ton of funds to do a big blowout, you know, 8 by 10 by 10 on, you know, flora 100, 200, like whatever. We took that step in at the Fresh Ideas and that was such a good show for us because it was very focused. There was not a ton of brands, but there were really respectable brands that we really respect and we had a blast.

27:39
Greg Cahn
And were, there were all the buyers, everyone from the ecosystem was there. I mean we met everyone and so there was no date coffee on the floor. We were the only ones. And the curiosity and excitement around what were doing was like, it proved a point to us, which was people had never tasted something like this before and what they thought was going to be this substitute thing that tasted kind of funny ended up being wow. Like the reaction was like, wow, this is coffee. This is totally familiar. This is like really enjoyable, subtly sweet coffee. Conversations we had were amazing. Got a lot of respected Instagram media company channels doing a lot of stories on us. It was just, it was really exciting. And so then, you know, the, the, the Fresh Ideas also we got three badges.

28:26
Greg Cahn
We didn't do a big Wednesday through Friday exhibit. We just got the badge to set up meetings, did a bunch of dinners with some potential investors and people and going into next year, certainly that's the move for us is to have to really exhibit and be. Be ready for a big retail push. I think for like for us right now trying to be really thoughtful and really surgical about our growth. Really strategic. You know the focus right now on the retail side is independent natural grocery, California Focus where we can really demo really be there on site. You know that's what's so good about the farmer's market is I get to really educ. There's nobody doing. You know we're. We're first to market here. Like we're. If you Google date coffee we'll be on page one. We're on page one there.

29:13
Greg Cahn
But it's not a big search volume. Right. Because it's a totally new category. What will populate is date seed coffee. And that was when we first looked into this to this idea what we found. Not many companies around the world but there are some that do the date seed coffee and it's just the seed as a true coffee bean replacement. And what they do is they just use the seed and we found companies that like pair it with chicory and frankly not to be a hater here but I just didn't enjoy any of them. Right. So that was kind of like our motivation to go further use coffee, create our own blend and really pushing to this kind of first to market as a true date Coffee brand and product. So. So that was. So that's our, that's kind of our strategy is.

29:57
Greg Cahn
Is retail is certainly in the. We're looking at it through the front mirror or through the front window. And, and we certainly see us you know in big grocery pretty you know, soon. But we don't want to go too fast. We know, you know, the operation is very manageable at this moment. But now is like our time to kind of hit the gas because the gap is always closing and people are listening and taking notes who are much more funded and capitalized than us. So it feels like the time is now to kind of accelerate, try and own the catego and then go from there. And we certainly have stuff in R and D that we're really excited about as we kind of expand into beverage and dates. Being kind of positioned as like a date beverage company.

30:41
Caitlin Bricker
I love all of that. It sounds like Expo west was perfect for you to exhibit. I look forward to hopefully seeing you in 2026. We can meet in person.

30:50
Greg Cahn
Definitely.

30:51
Caitlin Bricker
Let's help accelerate that growth a little bit. Tell our listeners where they can find you online.

30:56
Greg Cahn
Yeah. So our website always the best place. Drinktomar.com and our handles on IG, Facebook, @Drinktomor, TikTok, although our TikTok is, it's getting there. But IG is where we're most active on social, we're on Amazon Prime. Type in Tamar date coffee and we will populate. We're in one natural grocery actually we're up in Diablo Foods up in Lafayette, California, an amazing family owned natural grocery and have you know, really a test case for us. They've sold well selling through multiple reorders. So that was like, that was a little bit of a proof point to say this is definitely a retail product. We're definitely on that shelf. It's just now, you know, driving people to the website, getting people on subscriptions. We have all those kind of early adopter, you know, evangelists of the product and it's exciting.

31:52
Greg Cahn
That's the excitement is like or small or the little engine that could going up that mountain. Got a lot to go but it's, you know, it's one tomorrow date coffee bag at a time.

32:03
Caitlin Bricker
You'll make it happen. It's always great to see a brand that's just truly doing something different and clearly you're doing that with Tamar and that's our mission.

32:11
Greg Cahn
Like, like the mission is just serving really good stuff to the general public. Like not trying to, like there's a lot of secondary missions but like that's what I like to tell like my customers at the farmer's market. I am a founder but I'm a use case. I drink this. I drink this every day and I know how good it makes me feel. And all I want to do is pass that on to potential buyers that want to try that and trust that. And so for me it's not really selling. I've never had a sales job in my life until this. It's been interesting to kind of just talk to people and see what they like about their coffee, see what they're looking for, what it's not giving them.

32:48
Greg Cahn
And we all know coffee makes people start their day and hopefully they have a better day because they drink tomorrow.

32:54
Caitlin Bricker
I think they will. Well, Greg, it's been great talking to you and it's been great getting to know more about you and your brand. I really hope that I get to meet you at Expo west in 2026 and I look forward to getting my hat in the mail.

33:10
Greg Cahn
It's coming, it's coming.

33:11
Caitlin Bricker
Amazing.

33:12
Greg Cahn
I have your address. Yeah, I can't wait to send that to you. And Caitlin, thanks so much. This is so great for founders, entrepreneurs, the whole, you know, ecosystem of cpg. You guys are doing an amazing thing and I see you everywhere and it's just again, from one founder to you guys. So grateful for what you guys do.

33:31
Caitlin Bricker
Thank you so much. We love having you in the community.

33:35
Greg Cahn
Thanks.

33:35
Caitlin Bricker
Catch you later. All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, do us a solid and leave us a five star review on ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I'm Caitlin Bricker, the host of the Founder feature series and editor at Startup CPG. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack and get on my radar. I'm always keeping my eyes peeled for new and emerging brands to spotlight. If you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnerships startup cpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our free CPG community on Slack. You can sign up via our website@startupcpg.com see you around.